


19 Lives

by hockeytapes



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, I don't know what I'm doing please don't question me, M/M, eventually this will be explicit, if dylan strome can actually sing i'll eat my own leg, this is how I'm avoiding uni work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-28 18:57:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10837365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hockeytapes/pseuds/hockeytapes
Summary: It’s not by choice that Connor ends up at the concert, but he’s glad he did in the end.Or, that one where Dylan Strome is in a band.





	1. Chapter 1

It’s not by choice that Connor ends up at the concert, but he’s glad he did in the end. He’d been planning to get an early night when his teammates show up and not so politely inform him that they’re going out and he’s coming with them. Connor likes to think he’s getting better at resisting them now (after all, it took them more than ten minutes to get him out of the door this time) but once Leon threatens to sit on his head he caves. 

 

It turns out to be pretty fun. He’s never been a big fan of rock music, but the crowd is really into it. It feels like a home game after the team has won, where all the fans are loud and happy, giving off intensely euphoric vibes. The lead singer is a little bit goofy, throwing himself around like an excited puppy. He looks like he loves what he does, and Connor likes that. There’s not a lot of room to dance, but that doesn’t stop the guys from flailing around to the beat. By the end of it Connor’s sweating through his t-shirt, but he doesn’t mind so much. The lights come on and much to the delight of the crowd the lead singer comes back out for a moment to thank them all with a blinding smile.

 

He’s just collapsed into bed when the notification comes through on his phone. He opens it to find Nuge has tweeted a picture he took of them all in the crowd with the caption, “Saw @19LivesBand tonight!” Connor didn’t realise he’d taken one, which is evident in the picture; he’s looking at the stage while Ebs, Leon and Nuge all grin at the camera. He likes and retweets it, adding, “Great show!” before he puts his phone down and passes out. 

 

***

 

When Connor wakes up, it’s to a dozen excited texts from various friends. Half of them are from Mitch. He has no idea what’s going on, and after seeing the same name pop up in almost all the messages he just gives up and opens FaceTime. Mitch answers almost immediately. 

 

“Dude!” He greets delightedly. He’s sat on a couch with Auston, who just looks mildly amused.

 

“Who’s Dylan Strome?” Connor asks. 

 

Mitch stares at him. Auston rolls his eyes.

 

“Did you just ask  _ who’s Dylan Strome? _ ”

 

“Uh… yes?”

 

“What the fuck. He’s the singer for 19 Lives, you were literally at his concert yesterday.”

 

“Oh. I don’t listen to them. The guys made me go.”

 

Mitch opens his mouth to respond but squawks indignantly when Auston elbows him. “Not everyone listens to 19 Lives religiously, Marns.” 

 

“I didn’t even know who they were until last night,” Connor says. 

 

Mitch makes another offended noise. 

 

“Dude you must’ve, they’re so famous. They’re on the radio  _ all the time _ .”

 

It’s not that Connor lives under a rock, it’s just that he doesn’t have a lot of time to keep up with much outside of hockey. He’s just been made captain and he doesn’t want to seem like he’s goofing off, and he says as much to the guys. 

 

“Still! I can’t believe you’ve never heard of them,” Mitch moans. “C’mon, Strome’s face is everywhere man. Their last album was all I heard about for like two weeks after it was released.”

 

“They are pretty hard to avoid,” Auston admits. 

 

“Why’s it such a big deal?”

 

Mitch sighs. “Just… go look at Twitter.”

 

Connor sighs and rolls his eyes extra hard to show Mitch exactly how ridiculous all of this is, but opens his laptop anyway and searches Strome’s name. The latest tweet has several thousand likes and retweets, and it makes Connor’s stomach twist in a pleased sort of way for some reason. 

 

**_Can’t believe McJesus was at our show and I didn’t know! Good luck tonight @Oilers_ **

 

Below it Strome has retweeted Connor’s retweet of the picture Nuge posted. 

 

“You got a fan, dude!” Mitch says, excitedly.

 

“He’s got loads of fans,” Auston points out.

 

“Yeah, but not all of them are  _ Dylan Strome. _ ” 

 

The two of them begin to bicker, and Connor hangs up. He heads into the kitchen to make himself coffee. Mitch doesn’t call him back, so Connor assumes he and Auston still arguing and haven’t noticed his absence. He opens twitter on his phone and looks at Strome’s tweet again, then clicks on the singer’s icon absentmindedly. It’s of Strome and two guys Connor assumes are his bandmates, their arms slung around each other’s shoulders all beaming at the camera. Strome looks tired but glad to be there. It makes Connor smile. He hits follow.

 

***

 

The game that night is fun for two reasons:

 

  1. They absolutely _slaughter_ the Blackhawks 5-0.
  2. Dylan Strome is in the crowd.



 

Connor finds out as he and the guys are gearing up. Someone comes in and informs them all that 19 Lives are in the stands, and well… chaos ensues. There are at least five jokes made about Strome coming to worship McJesus, another few about Connor giving up hockey for a life of rock’n’roll and finally after about ten minutes of this they’re out onto the ice. 

 

Connor loves winning, and tonight he feels extra fired up. He doesn’t score himself, but he racks up points by assisting both Oscar and Leon. It feels good, and when they stumble off the ice after hugging and screaming themselves hoarse at each other Connor’s forgotten all about Strome and 19 Lives. 

 

They don’t stay forgotten long. After the media scrums and a much needed shower, Connor walks out to find three semi-familiar men stood around talking to his teammates as they change. 

 

“Davo!” Nuge yells, and everyone turns towards him. 

 

Connor’s felt cornered before, but never while he was mostly naked clutching a towel around his as he stares at a world famous rock band and his teammates try to hide their laughter.  

 

“Um...” He says intelligently.

 

“Get dressed man, c’mon,” Leon gives him a light shove on his way to get changed. 

 

Connor does as he’s told, heading for his stall and pulling on his clothes as Nuge talks to the band about the show last night. Nuge introduces them happily as Dylan Strome, Taylor Raddysh and Haydn Hopkins. Connor gives them all a smile and a nod as he searches for his belt. He looks up as he’s zipping his pants to find Strome learning casually against the wall, smiling at him. Nuge is still talking to the other two guys, so Connor just smiles back awkwardly unsure of what to say. 

 

“Good game tonight,” Dylan offers. 

 

“Uh, thanks. You too. I mean, the show. Last night. Good show last night.” Connor feels his his cheeks flood with color. He is media trained, he should not be this bad at making conversation with somebody. 

 

Dylan’s face lights up. “You liked it?”

 

“For sure, it was fun.”

 

“Your buddies said you’re a new fan,” Dylan’s eyes twinkle mischievously. 

 

Connor is going to kill his teammates.

 

“Sure,” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “I liked that one song, with the… drums.”

 

Dylan giggles. Connor silently prays for the ground to open up and swallow him as he pulls on his shirt. 

 

A little over fifteen minutes later, when the chatter has died down and the room starts to clear out Connor heads for the door, but before he can leave he’s stopped by a hand on his shoulder. It’s Dylan. 

 

“I just wanted to say it was awesome to see you play. Would it be okay if we took a selfie?” He asks Connor, uncertainly. 

 

Connor nods and Dylan grins. They stand pressed together shoulder to shoulder as he takes the photo. It’s a nice picture, they both look happy and comfortable, which is a miracle because Connor spent the brief few seconds they were touching having a crisis over what to do with his arms. 

 

“Thanks, man,” Dylan says and turns to leave. 

 

“Thanks for watching the game,” Connor calls after him.

 

Dylan salutes him as he walks out the door. 

 

He tweets the selfie twenty minutes after Connor gets home.

 

**_Prayers answered tonight, McJesus and his healing hands @cmcdavid97_ **

 

Connor laughs and types out a reply, examining it carefully for typos before hitting send. 

 

**_@stromer19 your band is a good luck charm #newfan_ **

 

The notification that Dylan has liked it comes through almost immediately. 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Houston, we have communication.

November ends, but the tweeting doesn’t. Connor wasn’t expecting Strome to reply to his good luck charm comment, but he does, and it sets off a chain of tweets that make Connor smile to himself when he’s making breakfast in the mornings.

 

**_@cmcdavid97 guess we’ll have to come to all your games now_ **

 

**_@stromer19 Nah, we’ll just play your music for warmups_ **

 

**_@cmcdavid97 that one song, right?_ **

 

**_@stromer19 yeah that one with the drums_ **

 

It continues like that. Sometimes Dylan will tweet the entire team with messages of luck for upcoming games, and sometimes he’ll directly tweet Connor with things like a short video of Taylor doing soundcheck on his drums and the caption, “your favorite song.” As a result Connor starts to pay more attention. It’s almost like _19 Lives_ are popping up everywhere now. He sees them splashed across billboards in dramatic poses advertising their latest single _‘Memorial.’_ They play on the radio and he starts to recognise some of their songs. He spends an off day listening to their albums on spotify, then he _buys_ all of their albums and justifies it as showing his support for the band when his teammates tease him for it.

 

He may or may not also buy them in CD and vinyl form, and if he purchases a record player alongside those too, nobody has to know about it.

 

It’s late at night after a bad game against the Kings that Connor gets curious about Dylan himself. He’s tired and frustrated, the team is going through a rough patch and he’s finding it hard not to blame himself for it all, so he flops back in bed and sticks his headphones in hoping music will calm him down. He picks a song from the first _19 Lives_ album, _‘Metronome Heart,’_ and closes his eyes.

It’s a slow song, all piano and quiet strings. Dylan’s voice croons soothingly in a way that makes Connor feel like he’s drifting. He sings about escaping from reality and feeling lost. For the four minutes the song goes on Connor feels less like he’s alone and more like there’s somebody out there who understands the pressure he feels right now. It’s comforting, but it makes him wonder what made Dylan Strome feel like an outsider. Apart from the fact he likes hockey and that he’s in a band, Connor knows almost nothing about the guy he’s been having semi-regular contact with over Twitter. It bothers him.

 

A quiet nagging at the back of his mind reminds him this is possibly quite creepy even as he opens Google and enters Dylan’s name, but it’s not like anyone will know. Besides, it’s just Wikipedia.

 

Half an hour, three music articles and four blogs later Connor feels like he knows more about Dylan Strome than he has any right to. He now knows that Dylan is from the Greater Toronto Area, just like him, and that Dylan actually spent a lot of time playing hockey when he was younger before he discovered his love of music in his early teams and dropped hockey in favour of learning to play guitar. Connor hadn’t realised Dylan was related to the Islanders right winger, Ryan Strome, and for some reason he has trouble connecting the two of them in his head. However, even having learned all the public facts about Dylan, Connor doesn’t feel appeased. He wants to delve deeper, wants to know more about Dylan than what the internet could tell him.

 

He has met Dylan _once,_ he reminds himself. Meeting a public figure and then tweeting back and forth for a month does not qualify as a close relationship. Connor has no right to know anything personal about Dylan. Except he _wants_ to. Badly.

 

With a sigh Connor drops his phone back onto his nightstand and clicks the lamp off. He feels too old for this celebrity stalker shit, and yet somehow he still falls asleep thinking about Dylan Strome.

 

***

 

Later that month Mitch and Auston decide to make an appearance, showing up at Connor’s door and hassling them until he lets them in (not that it takes too much convincing, he’s missed them). He only begins to regret letting them through the door when Mitch opens up Connor’s laptop to order pizza and, Mitch being Mitch, decides to open up Connor’s recent search history.

 

“I was expecting to find porn, but this is much worse.” Mitch giggles as Connor tries to wrestle the computer away from him. “Really Davo, this is a new level of creepy even for you. How many times did you Google him, Jesus Christ? Did you buy his poster yet? I bet you did and you kiss it goodnight every night.”

 

“Shut the fuck up,” Connor says, finally wrenching the laptop out of Mitch’s grip.

 

“Language,” Mitch tries and fails to look serious as he shames Connor.

 

“This is definitely going on Snapchat,” Auston says.

 

“We’re exposing you. ‘World’s Biggest Fangirl, Connor McDavid.’ Deadspin’s gonna love it,” Mitch says with a wide grin.

 

Connor throws a cushion at him.

 

“Abuse! This is abuse!”

 

“Stop being a dick and you won’t get things thrown at you then, will you?” Connor grumbles.

 

Auston snickers.

 

“For real though, Davo,” Mitch says, settling back onto the couch. “Don’t you talk to this guy? If you’re that interested in his life why don’t you just act like a normal person and ask him about it?”

 

“What am I s’posed to do? Tweet, ‘hey I know we’ve only talked a few times but I’d really like to know why you decided to give up on hockey and play music instead. P.S did you know we’re from the same area?’ I don’t know if that would even fit in a Tweet!”

 

“You know DMs exist, right?” Auston points out. “Also… how do you have any friends?”

 

Mitch snorts in laughter and wiggles his eyebrows. “Just slide on into his DMs, Davo. You know you want to. I’m sure he’d be more than willing.”

 

“Shut up,” Connor grumbles. He can feel his face turning red slowly. He can’t believe he’s being disrespected in his own home like this, by his own friends. Well… he can believe it. That doesn’t mean he has to like it.

 

“C’mon, what better way to indulge your giant crush than to actually talk to the guy?” Auston asks.

 

“It’s not a crush!” Connor protests, maybe a little too quickly judging by Auston and Mitch’s stunned looks.

 

“Holy shit,” Mitch says, smile growing even wider. Connor’s a little worried his face is going to crack in half because of it soon. “You actually like him!”

 

“I do not! I just like his music!”

 

“Oh my God,” Auston says. “Is this the start of your emo phase? Are you gonna start wearing eyeliner?”

 

Connor punches him in the shoulder. “Says the guy who wears ripped jeans.”

 

“Hey, my jeans are awesome!”

 

“Yeah, I’m sure all your fans get a kick outta seeing your pasty-ass knees.”

 

***

 

After that the conversation devolves quickly into a wrestling match, which leads to a lamp getting knocked across the room and Connor makes them both go to the nearest furniture store. It’s not as if he was attached to the lamp or anything, but _it’s the principle of the thing_ , and any mention of Connor’s search history is forgotten. It’s not until after the guys have left and Connor sees a commercial for _19 Lives’_ upcoming European tour that he remembers what they said.

 

Direct Messaging doesn’t seem like such a bad idea… after all, he and Dylan tweet each other almost every other week. It wouldn’t be _that_ weird for him to send a message, would it? As long as he has something relevant to say it would be fine, right?

 

Connor spends the next twenty minutes staring at his phone trying to think of a topic that won’t seem out of the blue to use to strike up a conversation. In the end he needn’t have worried, because a notification pops up on his phone while he’s thinking. It’s a message from Dylan.

 

 **_stromer19:_ ** _hey man, I’m good yeah! Saw your game last night, you were awesome! Not doing much atm, just on the tour bus haha. Wbu?_

 

Wait, what? Connor frowned to himself as he read it. Then he saw it. The message above Dylan’s.

 

 **_cmcdavid97:_ ** _hey dylan, how are you?_

 

Connor was going to kill Mitch. He must’ve swiped his phone earlier when Connor wasn’t paying attention. What the fuck. What was he meant to do now?

 

**[You]**

_Dude what the fuck, you messaged Dylan Strome for me?_

 

**[Marns]**

_Did he text back? Nice!_

 

**[You]**

_Yes! Wtf am i meant to say?_

 

 **[Marns** ]

_say hi and ask what he’s up 2 it’s not that hard_

 

**[You]**

_ur a dick_

 

 **[Marns** ]

_You’ll thnk me at ur wedding_

 

**[You]**

_I hate u_

 

 **[Marns** ]

_ly2 bby_

 

Connor sighs and opens Twitter up again, chewing his lip nervously as he taps out a reply to Dylan.

 

 **_cmcdavid97:_ ** _just hanging out, it’s an off day today_

 

Dylan’s reply is almost instantaneous. Connor smiles to himself.

 

 **_stromer19:_ ** _must be nice to have a break, eh?_

 

 **_cmcdavid97:_ ** _yeah, pretty boring though, you don’t have a show tonight?_

 

 **_stromer19:_ ** _nah just traveling_

 

Connor’s trying to think of something interesting to say when Dylan’s next message comes through.

 

 **_stromer19:_ ** _i’m bored too, wanna be bored together?_

 

 **cmcdavid97:** _what do u mean?_

 

 **_stromer19:_ ** _you got facetime?_

  
And that’s how Connor ends up spending the evening on call with Dylan Strome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're pretending that two leafs players can just randomly pop into edmonton for no apparent reason ere okay suspend your disbelief people just for a moment.
> 
> also, today i finished a 27 page paper and wrote the entirety of this chapter, if you know me this behaviour is highly ooc i fully expect to spontaneously combust from productivity any moment now
> 
> once again bless [toolittletoolate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toolittletoolate) for murdering the hell out of unnecessary commas

**Author's Note:**

> Bless [toolittletoolate](http://archiveofourown.org/users/toolittletoolate) for saving this fic from drowning in commas.


End file.
